


Every Fire Is A Lesson Learned

by cerie



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, First Time, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-23
Updated: 2012-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-10 14:16:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerie/pseuds/cerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara/Will and eventual Helen/Will.  AU fic where Adam Worth screws with the timeline and makes Helen disappear in 1879, only for her to show up in 2008 confused and a little behind the times. Vaguely an AU spin on the episode 3x02 "Firewall."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Fire Is A Lesson Learned

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a short, cracky AU. Yeah. It grew the plot monster.

“Zimmerman, got something weird for you.” Will doesn’t really work for OCPD anymore but that doesn’t stop Kavanaugh from keeping him on speed dial. Magnus won’t be up yet, he keeps late hours, so Will is more than happy to take a detour before burying himself in paperwork. Besides, this might be something good for the Sanctuary, so there’s a really good chance Magnus might have wanted him on it anyway.

And it beats the hell out of expense reports. When Will agreed to sign on at the Sanctuary, he thought there would be a lot more hands-on with patients than it has been so far and while he’d had some great experiences, he didn’t really count figuring out payscale in Norway to be one of them. This was more up his alley.

Will isn’t entirely sure what to expect but a blonde woman in a old-fashioned nightgown isn’t exactly it. Her face is familiar, so familiar it’s striking, and it only takes him a few moments to realize he’s seen it before. Hanging in Magnus’s office, there’s a portrait of a young woman next to a horse, golden hair and bright blue eyes just like the woman sitting in the middle of the OCPD interrogation lounge. 

Will’s seen weird things with the Sanctuary, true, but he’s not sure if this is actually the daughter (Helen, he thinks he heard Gregory say) or if she’s some kind of doppelganger. He knows, based on the dress and her clear confusion, that she’s got to be from the past somehow. He thinks this is the genuine article and the idea of it both thrills him and scares him shitless.

One night, late, over beer and brandy, Gregory Magnus told him about how his daughter went missing in the autumn of 1879. There’d been an Abnormal serial killer on the loose, a former patient of Gregory’s, and he’d had a soft spot for Helen. Helen had been tender-hearted, as well, and Gregory had thought this patient (John Druitt, from what Will recalled) had stolen her and killed her. No body had ever been found.

Will glances at Kavanaugh before going into the interrogation room and settling in a chair across from her. She’s got a tremble in her hands but she doesn’t let it show in her voice, at all, which is a low, sweet English accent that’s not too different from her father’s. Will gives her his best self-deprecating grin and takes his glasses off to clean them; this serves two purposes: puts her at ease and buys him time to watch her.

“I’m Will,” he offers. “Will Zimmerman. The police said you were a little confused and I want to help you out.”

She bristles, immediately, and sits ramrod straight in her chair. “For the love of God, I’m not confused. My name is Helen Patricia Magnus, I live at number 42 Albemarle Street, in London, the date is the fourth of October in the year 1879 and I am most certainly _not_ confused. I want to talk to the authorities. My father has the ear of the queen, you know, and he’s going to be incredibly cross with you once he hears about this. I want you to take me to him, Mr. Zimmerman.”

1879\. So she’s from when she disappeared, apparently, and Will doesn’t know what to do with this information. On one hand, he’s almost giddy, because the disappearance of Helen Magnus is something that’s gone unsolved for the past 129 years and legend has it that the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes had even been on the case once. Will’s just enough of a geek to bask in the glory of solving the unsolvable. On the other hand, though, if it turns out she’s an impostor or something happens and she disappears again, Gregory’s going to be devastated. Will can’t do that to him. Not when it has to do with Helen.

“Not just yet. I just really want to make sure who you are, okay? I don’t want to dump you off with someone and not make sure they’re the right person to take care of you.” Helen glares at him, eyes all flint and steel, but she doesn’t voice a protest. Will presses the button for the intercom and calls out for Kavanaugh and the boys crowding around the door. Might as well deal with the peanut gallery.

“Hey, think we could get some coffee? And maybe a little privacy? I can almost hear you breathing heavy and it’s not attractive.” He laughs and glances at Helen. She concedes the tiniest of smiles around her lips. Well. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all, and he’s got some time to soften her up. She has her arms crossed over her chest and is shifting in her chair so Will calls out for something else.

“Could you bring a blanket, too? Pretty big one?” That done, he turns off the intercom and leans in, voice warm, soft and low. Anything to put her at ease and to calm her, because she’s skittish and prickly right now and that’s the last thing either of them needs if he’s going to get to the bottom of this. She relaxes by a fraction of a degree.

“Thank you. I feel quite immodest at the moment. The chill in this room is really quite extraordinary since it felt like spring out of doors. I should like to know how it works once I’ve found my father and can feel like myself again.” Will can’t help but smile at that. Scared out of her mind, lost, being questioned by a bunch of strange men and she’s still curious about the air conditioning? Must be a Magnus.

“We’ll get you warmed up, I promise.” When the door pushes in and their coffee and the blanket is delivered, Will cuts a sharp look at Kavanaugh when he looks like he wants to stay and sit in and shoos everyone back out. It’s going to go better if this is a one-on-one thing and Will crosses behind Helen and wraps the blanket around her shoulders. “There you go. That should keep you warm until we can get you some clothes.”

She murmurs a soft thanks and lifts the coffee mug to her lips, sipping delicately and spitting it out in distaste. “Are you trying to poison me? This is utterly disgusting and I don’t care for it.” Will tamps down a laugh and tries his own coffee. Turns out, she’s right, and it is disgusting. It’s sludge after hours of being reheated and Will pushes it aside. They can get her something nice later, once he’s really sure it’s her.

“What’s the last thing you remember before coming here, Helen?” Will isn’t sure if time travel is possible but there’s a mermaid on the third floor and there’s a yeti who changes his sheets every week. He’s not about to discount it out of hand. Helen clutches the blanket a bit tighter around her shoulders and holds the coffee mug, even if she doesn’t dare drink from it. Will can’t say he really blames her on that front.

“I heard a noise, just outside my window, so I crawled out to investigate. I’ve a second floor room but there’s a rather useful trellis just outside that I used to climb down. It’s always been of use to me. Anyway, I went out on the lawn, there was a hand that clamped over my mouth and a flash of light. I awoke in the street, nearly run down by some sort of speeding conveyance and I was brought here directly, where they’ve been treating me like either a common criminal, addled, or some combination of both. Really, I don’t want to tell this story any longer, I simply want to see my father. I’ve been told he lives in this city.”

 _Fuck, Kavanaugh. Of course._ Will doesn’t let that affect him visibly, though, and spreads his hands out on the table. He might as well be frank with her, and honest, and hope that she’s the real thing and not some fake. He doesn’t think he could take watching Gregory grieve fresh for his daughter again when the entire time he’s known him, just outside six months, Gregory gets a little misty eyed every time he looks at that portrait in his office.

“He does. It’s complicated, Helen, and I don’t want to upset your father any more than I have to, so is it all right if I don’t take you to him right away? Soon, though, and I’m not making you stay here overnight. I’ll get you a hotel room to stay in until I can figure out how to tell Dr. Magnus you’re here.” Helen arches a brow and Will realizes belatedly that this isn’t going to cut it. She’s just way too smart for platitudes and Will decides to play that angle instead.

“Dr. Magnus thinks you died back in 1879,” Will says, watching her face to make sure she doesn’t get too upset. That’s the last thing he wants and while he thinks she can handle a lot, this is a lot more than most people ever have to face down. “You disappeared and he thought the worst, after a while. It’s 2008 now.” He waits to see how she takes that. Weirdly, she only makes a soft “oh” of surprise and looks down, examining the weave of the blanket.

“My father must have succeeded in his experiments, then,” Helen says softly and Will nods. He’s pushing two centuries now and doesn’t seem a day over sixty, which means he’s still ticking and Will’s around to do the heavy lifting. Will reaches across the table and touches her hand, shocked at how soft her skin feels. He realizes, belatedly, that Helen Magnus probably hasn’t worked a day in her life and more than likely wore gloves in her day to day life. She wouldn’t have calluses the way a modern woman would.

“You probably want to get out of here, right?” Helen nods, some of her bravery from earlier melting into exhaustion. She looks dead on her feet and Will decides that if there’s going to be any more questioning, it’s going to be after she’s had a meal and a good night’s sleep. He’ll let her stay overnight somewhere nice and then, if her story checks out, he’ll take her to see Gregory as soon as possible.

***

One of the perks of having a Sanctuary-issued credit card is that the room Will rents for Helen isn’t down at the Motel 6 and is actually at the Fairmont House, an old rambling Victorian turned B&B. It’s not exactly what she’d have had in 19th century London, but it’s close, and Will hopes it makes her feel more comfortable. At least there’s an actual key for the door and not one of those fiddly card things that Will can never seem to get to work. He hands the key to her after he lets her in.

Helen had already experienced a car with the police that picked her up and was less shocked by that as she seems by the telephone. She picks it up and frowns a bit, contemplative, at the sound of the dial tone before hanging it up. She presses a few keys and frowns a bit deeper. Will’s standing across the room, hands in his pockets, and he grins.

“What does this device do, Will?” Will smiles and pulls out his cell phone before giving her the number and Helen dials it carefully, biting her lower lip as it rings. Will picks up his own phone and answers it and Helen drops the handset in shock, eyes big and round as she watches him. Modern technology apparently pleases her, though, because the shock melts into a smile.

“Oh, that’s really quite extraordinary, isn’t it? I’d heard of Bell’s work, of course, but I never thought it would catch on. I’m far too fond of paper and telegraphs. More reliable by far.” Helen replaces the handset and settles on the edge of the bed, smoothing down her nightgown. Will has to get her something to wear and he figures in a fancy place like this, they can just send her something up in the morning. He ballparks her size (she’s tall, but her waist is tiny, so it’s a crapshoot) and calls the front desk, who promises something will be there by the time Helen wakes up. They also promise to send up dinner, since she hasn’t eaten.

“Food soon. Is there anything else you need while I’m thinking about it?” Helen shakes her head. She’s taking all this incredibly well, sure, but she seems a little more vulnerable outside of the OCPD headquarters and Will knows it’s been a trying and confusing day for her. He settles next to her on the bed and slides his arm around her shoulders. It’s weird, but he feels so damned protective of her, and it just feels natural to offer her some comfort right now. Helen frowns at him but she doesn’t voice a protest and curls into him after a few moments.

“I’m sure you must think me mad,” she says softly, barely audible. “I just don’t know how I could have arrived from my era to this one and...my father needs me, Will. My mother died and I’m all he has and I cannot imagine him without me. I need to see him.” Her voice is so plaintive that Will wants to wrap her up in something soft and give her anything she wants. She’s scared, sure, but there’s strength under it that Will doesn’t think he’d have if the situation was reversed.

“Nope. I think you’re worn out and worried about your dad. I don’t think you’re crazy.” When Helen’s breath hitches and he hears a tell-tale sniffle, Will doesn’t really call attention to it. He tucks her face in against his shoulder and rubs his hand lightly down her back to try and soothe her. His fingers play in wayward curls, trying to smooth the snarls, and when her shoulders start to shake, he just holds her tighter. Everyone needs a good cry now and then and he’s pretty sure Helen’s earned it.

When there’s a knock at the door from room service, Helen bolts up and out of his arms, furiously wiping at her cheeks. Her face is a little red from tears and her eyes are still shiny as if they’ll come back at any moment and Will makes quick work of signing for the food and running the waiter off. When they’re alone again, Will busies himself with setting the food out on the little table in her room.

“It’s okay to be upset, Helen, I promise. I know there’s social conventions from your era that we probably don’t have, and that’s okay if you want to keep those, but I want you to know when it’s just us, you can cry or yell or do anything you need to do.” He looks up and flashes her a grin, cheeky and bright.

“Just warn me if you’re going to start throwing things? I already broke my nose once in the line of duty and I really don’t want to do it again.” That startles a laugh out of Helen and she comes over to the table, snatching some kind of fancy-looking creampuff thing and eating it quickly. Will wants to laugh, hard, and covers his mouth with his hand so it comes out as a snort instead. Helen’s cheeks flame red and she goes about building a rather-sensible plate with a balance of all the good things and none of the sweets.

Will sneaks a chocolate eclair on her plate and looks innocent when she arches a brow at it. They could have a whole conversation with their eyebrows, probably, and while the concept is amusing, Will doesn’t really want to try it out tonight. Instead, he gets a few things himself and settles in a chair so he can eat and he’s not invading her personal space. Gregory gets weird about that, being too familiar, and while she let him mostly-hug her a few minutes ago, Will probably thinks she’s normally very reserved when it comes to physical affection.

“What is it that you do for my father, exactly? I’ve never known him to have a protege in my era. I always assisted him with his work and if damned Oxford could get the stick out of their arse, I’d have my degrees. I wanted to be a surgeon, like father, and they let me audit the classes but wouldn’t give me credit. I’m just as good as any of the men I took courses with.” Helen delicately sips at tea and Will mulls over how, exactly, to answer her question.

“I do anything your dad asks me to. I’m a psychiatrist, or I was before I came to work for Gregory. Now I’m kind of a Jack of all trades. I go retrieve dangerous creatures, talk to patients,” he grins a little and affects a Cockney accent for a moment to say, “Rescue fair damsels what ask for the help of Dr. Gregory Magnus and his Sanctuary. Don’t know how I’m really doing on the damsel thing, though, so you’ll have to fill out an evaluation at the end.”

“I suppose I shall have to be fair in giving you marks, then,” Helen says quietly and it’s only the smile peeking around her mouth that tips Will off that she’s joking. Joking is good, considering this is such a screwed up situation, and he thinks that maybe the resilience means she’ll be just fine seeing Gregory. He might not be fine seeing her, it’s been over a hundred years, but Magnus has seen some weird shit. This can hardly be the weirdest.

They eat for a little while and linger over tea and coffee before Helen clears her throat awkwardly. Will can tell she wants to say something and he waits patiently; no sense in prying it out before she’s ready and if it’s something that’s a little delicate, he really doesn’t want to offend her. He’s getting a crash course in Victorian manners and he really hopes she’s grading on a curve if he screws it up.

“I need to use the facilities but if they are as different as anything else, I should like to be shown how before I make a fool of myself. I would also, very much, like a bath.” This particular room doesn’t have a tub in the bathroom, only a shower, and Will wishes he’d have thought about that before picking this one. He grins and stands, though, motioning for her to follow. The toilet is kind of self explanatory, at least, and there had been similar in her own era. The shower is a little more troublesome to explain and, just like with the telephone, Helen seems to be delighted by it. There’s a big, fluffy bathrobe, too, and Will hands it to her.

“I can stay, if you want? Or I can go ahead and go for the night and leave you to it. My phone number is written down next to the phone, okay, so if something happens, you’ll call?” Helen’s clutching the bathrobe but she nods and indicates she’s all right with him leaving for the evening. She looks like she’s waffling about something and Will’s about to ask her what it is before she closes the distance between them and presses a feather-light kiss against his cheek. Oh.

“Thank you, Dr. Zimmerman. You’ve been most kind and I’ve needed it after such a hellish day. Will you take me to my father tomorrow?”

Will nods silently and backs away. Now, he gets to spend the rest of the night prepping Gregory Magnus for a blast from the past.

***

When he gets back to the Sanctuary, Gregory’s not in his office. Neither is he in the labs or the library, so on a lark he tries the roof. Sure enough, Gregory’s up there and Will tries to tamp down his fear of heights so he can have this conversation. It’s hard, though, and he’s clinging to a parapet while Gregory looks content to stand right where a strong breeze might knock him down. Of course.

“What did OCPD have for you, my boy?” Will and Gregory sort of have a weird mentor-protege relationship that edges into father and son and it puts him at ease more often than not. Will’s always thought he was something of a surrogate for the lost daughter (Helen, she’s Helen now) and since he grew up without parents for the most part, he’s content with that role. Now, though, it makes this that much harder. Surely there’s not going to be as much need or room for Will on the personal level if Helen’s back and while it’s selfish to the extreme, Will wants to cling to his relationship with Gregory if he can.

“Uh, you might want to sit down for it. Have some tea, do the English thing? It’s kind of a doozy.” Understatement, to the extreme, and Gregory frowns. Weirdly, though they look nothing alike, Gregory and Helen apparently frown the same way. The same downturn of their mouth, the same little grooves bracketing their foreheads - it’s sort of endearing.

“Can’t imagine you can surprise me, Will, I’ve been alive two hundred years. I’ll concede to sitting for a bit, though,” he promises, and motions for Will to follow. They end up in his private study, a bottle of scotch between them, and while Will doesn’t really advocate alcohol as self-medication (been there, done that, got the tattoo), he thinks Gregory might need it.

“They found a woman in the streets, confused. I talked to her for most of the day and I’m pretty damn convinced she’s Helen. I don’t know _how_ but we deal with weird shit every day. Time travel isn’t that crazy, right?”

“I have never seen it before,” Gregory says after a long moment. “Not that we haven’t tried. Verne did some impressive work in that direction, as did Tesla himself. I’m not sure if anyone ever achieved it and, if so, why Helen would be involved. It will take some analysis, certainly. I will have to see for myself if this girl is truly my Helen but if she is...” Gregory pauses and looks up at the painting, eyes clouding up with unshed tears. “I have you to thank.”

Will privately thinks that it’s some accident, not really anything he did, but if Gregory wants to thank him, he’s not going to say no. He tops off their drinks and lifts his glass to propose a toast. As weird as this job is and as much heartache as it can bring, he needs to celebrate the good times when he can.

“To Helen, then?”

Gregory smiles and tips his glass against Will’s. “To Helen.”

***

When Will goes to the Fairmont to pick up Helen, he’s a little shocked to find her still in her nightgown holding up a bra like it might bite her. It hasn’t occurred to him that maybe Helen wouldn’t know about modern clothes and that, in her day, bras weren’t a thing. He really wishes Clara was back already from that stint over at the UK house because if he’s ever needed her, it’s now.

“What on earth is this? I presume it replaces my corset but I’ve yet to decide how I’m to fasten it on my own,” Helen says, touching the clasp lightly. Will rubs his hand over his face and through his hair, trying his best not to lose his cool. This is _so_ not in his job description and the fact that it’s the boss’s daughter only makes it worse. He sighs and steps a little closer.

“Slide your arms through the straps, put them over your shoulders and I can hook the back for you? I promise not to look anywhere other than the bra.” Why is Clara not here? Why is he cursed like this? Helen seems just as apprehensive as he is, at least, and that weirdly makes him feel a lot better about the whole situation, as fucked up as it is.

It seems, at least, that jeans are self-explanatory because when Will gets the all-clear to turn around and help her, she’s already got them on. Helen has smooth, pale skin with a few freckles here and there and her ass looks amazing. Will’s pretty sure he’s going to go to hell for looking, though, so he reaches up and hooks her bra quickly. His fingers brush against her bare skin lightly before pulling away. It’s just as soft as it looks.

“Good to go. If you put your shirt on, we can go ahead and go to the Sanctuary?”

Will turns back around and once she’s done changing, Helen taps him on the shoulder. She’s beautiful, even if it is just a blue sweater and jeans, and her hair is the same tumble of curls from the night before. She seems to be a little stressed by how messy it is, though, and quickly braids it. Will’s not in a rush, though, and when she finally has everything together and slips on her shoes, he opens the door to let her out.

He also opens the car door, too, and it’s nice that she doesn’t protest. Clara always gets a little prickly when he does dopey things like that but he guesses, in Helen’s era, that kind of thing is completely expected. It’s refreshing in a way that she lets him be sweet because it’s just not often he gets to show that side of himself.

“I don’t think I care much for cars,” Helen says after they’ve pulled out of the hotel parking lot and into the street. Will tries to drive as slow and careful as possible and keeps his eyes on the road. The last thing he wants is to scare her to death when he’s just trying to get from point A to point B. Point B, in this case, is the Sanctuary because as eager as Helen is to see her father, he’s twice as eager to see her.

“It’s a necessary evil,” Will says, slightly apologetic, and when he pulls into the parking garage on Sanctuary grounds, Helen looks visibly relieved. She also looks incredibly pale and Will parks and makes quick work of getting out to open the door for her. He’s ready to take her upstairs to see her father when he hears a familiar voice call out. 

“Will, the boss told me you had someone new with you,” Clara says, grinning a little and sticking out her hand. Helen seems a bit dubious but shakes her hand all the same, even if it’s nervous and unsure on her part. Will guesses it’s probably not a typical greeting from her era and it puts her on edge; Will’s on edge because he’s trying to deny the overwhelming desire he has to slide his arm around her waist and hold her close. 

“This is Clara Griffin,” Will introduces quickly, grinning at Clara before looking back to Helen. She’s nervous, a bit, but she’s holding herself together well. It’s pretty impressive and it says she’s got a lot of nerve, at least, and that’s something Will’s always going to be able to respect. “And Clara, this is Helen Magnus. She’s had a rough day or two, understandably, so I’m going to go get her settled with her dad and we can meet, uh, rec room?”

He cuts her a glance, trying to be subtle, and Clara thankfully reads the hints. Helen doesn’t seem to but Will doesn’t think she’s focused on much of anything other than her father and getting to see him as soon as possible. It would be what he’d be focusing on if the situation was reversed, at least, once he got past running around screaming because he’d suddenly lost a century and a half of life.

“I apologize, Miss Griffin, but would you happen to be a relation of one Mr. Nigel Griffin? He was a dear friend of mine, very kind, and you remind me of him a bit. He was ginger, though, not a brunette, but your eyes crinkle the same in the corners. It’s really quite extraordinary.” Clara looks stunned for a moment. Nigel Griffin is a relative from way way back, several generations, and all Will knew about him was that he too had a portrait up in Magnus’s office. The fact that Helen knew him (knows him, technically) is extraordinary.

“Uh, yeah. Great grandpa times a couple greats. He was your friend, really? Can you...well, you need to see your dad. But will you tell me about him?” Helen shakes her head, blonde curls bouncing in time with the movement, and Will stamps down the urge to say it’s cute yet again. Instead, he clears his throat awkwardly and hooks a thumb vaguely toward where Magnus’s office is.

“Time to swap stories later. Your dad is pretty eager to see you and I know you’d probably like to see him, right?”

Helen assures him that she wants that very much and Will leads the way, hoping this pans out and she’s the real thing - not just for Magnus, for whom he knows it will mean everything, but also for Helen who he’s just now getting to know.

***

Magnus had thought ahead and had tea prepared for him, Helen and presumably Will since there was a third place laid out. Will has acquired a little bit of a taste for tea since he came to work for the Sanctuary but he’s never going to prefer it over coffee. Tolerate it during business meetings, sure, but he’ll never crave it. There’s something just a little bit darling about the way Helen spreads her napkin out in her lap and delicately holds her teacup, though, and even though he should be meeting Clara by now, he finds that he wants to stay. Magnus solves that dilemma for him and gives him his best polite dismissal and Will’s all on his own.

Since it’s still early, Will decides to go to his office and catch up on paperwork instead of going immediately down to the rec room to meet Clara because...Clara isn’t really good for his productivity. It’s not an issue in the field. He knows they have to be smart and so does she and things that aren’t exactly ethical never happen out there. But when it’s just a paperwork day like today? Will can be lured away from noble purposes and good intentions pretty damn easily.

It’s not really a shock when he finds her perched on the edge of his desk, skirt a little too short and neckline a little too low. Clara knows how to work her assets, especially when it comes to Will, and he’s pretty sure she _knows_ he can’t resist her. Paperwork momentarily forgotten, he places his hands flat on the desk on either side of her hips and leans in for a long, slow kiss.

They can afford it since it’s _not_ field day and when Will pulls away, Clara’s eyes are sloe-dark and inviting. He grins and it goes even wider when he uncrosses her legs and pushes her thighs apart to see she’s not wearing any panties. Will doesn’t know if she’d come down to the garage like that or if this is a more recent development but he doesn’t care because it’s _awesome_.

“See something you like down there, Zimmerman?” He nods, feeling a little ridiculous, and tugs her to the edge of the desk so he can kneel and kiss, lick and suck his way along her thighs to where they join and she’s soaking wet. Clara’s bucking her hips against his face and making several interesting noises when Will hears a soft gasp and a querulous, “Dr. Zimmerman? I’m quite sorry, I’ll...I didn’t know...”

Clara all but shoves him off and yanks down her skirt and Will tries to surreptitiously wipe off his face. There’s no dignity right now. He should have locked the damned door (actually it might have even still been cracked) but he wasn’t expecting Victorian women barging in without knocking. Clara wasn’t either and her glare is a little dark as she mouths “I’ll see you later,” and slinks out, invisible, leaving nothing but a pile of her clothes behind. Must be nice.

Some time in the commotion of her walking in, Helen dropped a tray containing a tea service for two. The pot, luckily, was pewter but the cups were china and one of them has broken and the other has rolled some distance away. Will reaches for the unbroken cup just as Helen makes to pick up the fragments of shattered porcelain and she cuts herself on one, cursing (if drat can be considered a curse, at all) and brings her finger to her mouth to suck on it even though she’s sliced her palm too and it needs more attention than that.

“I think I’ve got a first aid kit in my desk. Let me get this, Helen? We can bandage your hand.”

She shakes her head. “No, I won’t take up any more of your time. Provide me with your kit and I shall bandage it myself, Dr. Zimmerman.”

Will notices that it’s not Will, any longer, and he wonders if he ought to try and talk about what she saw. He doesn’t owe her anything, really; men and women have sex every day and she’s going to have to get used to the different standards in this era versus her own. What he and Clara have is companionship and sex and there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s no reason for her to wall up and be embarrassed.

Instead, he gets the kit and hands it to her. “Look, Helen. I didn’t know you’d be coming down here and I shouldn’t have left the door unlocked. But there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s awkward as fuck, yeah, but Clara and I are going to be fine about it in a few days. Okay?” Helen, for her part, is bright red and she tips her head down, busy with the bandage. She does nod slightly, just a barely perceptible movement, and he sighs.

“Helen? What’s wrong?”

She looks up and her blue eyes have gone steely. “We shared an intimacy this morning. You might have informed me of your affianced status before allowing me to disrobe in front of you. I’ve slighted Clara before I ever even met her and she’s the granddaughter of one of my dearest friends. I don’t like being put in this position, Dr. Zimmerman, and I will thank you to call me Miss Magnus from now on. It’s unseemly to do otherwise. And do refrain from using such coarse language if you can possibly help it.”

Oh. _Oh._ Will hadn’t realized he was affianced, or whatever, and he’s not really sure if he should go about explaining “friends with benefits” to his boss’s sheltered, Victorian daughter. He decides they’ve had enough mishaps for one day (and it’s not even afternoon yet) and he lets it drop. Might as well try to repair it later.

“I’ll try, Miss Magnus. If you have questions, come find me, Clara or Henry?”

Helen nods and turns to leave, spinning on her heel so expertly that Will half expects to see the flounce of skirts and petticoats playing at her ankles as she does.

Well _shit._

***

Will doesn’t see Helen or Clara much for the next few weeks because he’s swamped with the intake of a group of telepaths from Rwanda escaping persecution by the government. The Sanctuaries all around the world have opened their arms to them and Old City has the biggest group by far, a grand total of thirty three. Settling thirty plus residents at once is taxing for Will even if he’s been working for Magnus for a while now and he barely knows what his own face looks like, much less Clara or Helen.

He’s surprised when three weeks in, Helen’s down in the infirmary helping out. Gregory’s been having headaches lately and he’s felled by one now, Will guesses, because Helen’s patching wounds and filling out intake forms. If she’s shocked by ballpoint pens, she doesn’t let on, and aside from an occasional stumbling over their language barrier or new technology, she’s confident and sets them at ease. Will can’t help but be a little fascinated by her and he watches, turning his glance away when she seems to catch him at it.

Helen is best with the children. Will’s never really thought about children one way or another but she’s amazing with them, kneeling down to get on their level and talking animatedly in a mix of their language, hers, and the French that passes as a lingua franca between them. They seem to be fond of her hair, golden curls unlike anything they see among themselves and while she stitches wounds and does examinations, she lets the little girls play in her hair no matter how tangled they get it.

Will’s mostly busy with his own work, counseling women and children who have seen the uglier side of conflict and while that’s hard to do in what is, essentially, triage, he tries to afford each privacy and a safe space to talk. He’s not as lucky as Helen, knowing French, but there are a few translators scattered around working double time to try and make sure everyone has their needs met and has all the knowledge they need about this new situation. The few times Will is able to look up from the task at hand, he catches Helen watching him, eyes alight with respect. It’s strange how much that means to him.

When Helen looks like she’s about to fall asleep standing up, Will catches her at the elbow and escorts her down to his office, settling her on his couch while he does (yes, more) paperwork to help get everything sorted for the INS and the UN. She looks even younger when she’s asleep, softer, and Will can’t help but smile. She’s pissed at him, still, but right now she looks like the girl he met in the interrogation room last month, curious about the world. She’ll more than likely have a million questions when she wakes up but for now, Will is trying his best to keep quiet for the time being.

That dream is dashed when Clara comes in, just as peppy as ever, and Will arches a brow and hooks a thumb toward where Helen’s sleeping. Clara seems only slightly apologetic and settles on the edge of his desk, leaning over and swiping some of his paperwork even though he’s hissing at her to stop being ridiculous. It’s always like this, with them, and they have a somewhat-silent back and forth before Helen rouses and sits up, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She looks somewhat embarrassed.

“Bloody hell, how long was I out? Ngozi will want me to help her with her bath. She’s frightened of our tub and I promised I’d show her the mermaid if she was well-behaved. She bit the last person who tried to give her one and I fear there’s a trauma there we’ve not sussed out quite yet,” Helen says, brow furrowing. Before Will can say anything, Clara crosses the room and slides an arm around the other woman’s shoulders. He arches a brow because this is _so_ going to end badly and Helen’s expression is a mirror of his own.

“You, lady, are going to have some fun. Have you had any fun since you showed up here? I’m thinking not. Will, call Henry. We’re gonna clear out of here for a few hours and get to know Helen somewhere that doesn’t give me work-related hives. Is that amenable to you?” She says the last in a little mock of Helen’s accent and it does nothing to lift the frown off Helen’s face. Will stifles a laugh and calls Henry, who is ecstatic at the opportunity to do something other than work for a few hours. He requests an Irish pub that they sometimes go drinking at on Half-Off Wednesdays and Will groans; the last thing he needs is Clara getting Helen drunk.

“I’d rather not, Clara, if it’s all the same to you.” Helen delicately extricates herself from Clara’s embrace and brushes off her blouse and trousers, looking every inch just as prim and proper in modern garb as she did in the painting wearing a dress and petticoats and God only knew what else. “While you may derive pleasure in acting upon every impulse that pops into your pretty head, I am not, and I doubt highly either of us needs our inhibitions lowered and certainly not in mixed company.”

Will worries for a second that Clara’s going to explode and she does, but it’s in laughter. She laughs long and hard and when Henry walks in, she’s still trying to catch her breath. Helen is beet red and stammering to explain herself, going on to say that sex is a healthy biological imperative and that engaging in the act isn’t actually detrimental to one’s health. It’s a weird mix of progressive scientist and Victorian schoolmarm and normally Will would be all about helping her except the fact that she’s been frosty for over a month just because she walked in on him enjoying “a healthy biological imperative.” So he’ll let her flounder for a little while before he comes to the rescue, just this time.

“Dude, did I miss something?” Henry waves a little at Helen, who is still blustering and stammering, and for once it seems she’s more uncomfortable than he is. Henry doesn’t do well around the opposite sex and Will hasn’t figured out if that’s because he’s attracted to Clara and, apparently, Helen, or if women in general just freak him out. He’s not close enough to Henry to ask that kind of question, either, so he’s always just let it lie.

It takes a little while to sort out where they’re going and how they’re getting there since Helen can’t actually drive and the rest of them want to drink. Henry ends up with a brilliant idea and decides to just have them all pile into a cab even though it’s a waste of money and cabs don’t normally stop down on their end of Old City. Apparently they can and will when it’s the Sanctuary calling and with a little improv on Will’s part (playing Gregory Magnus more or less effectively) they manage to get the whole thing sanctioned. Helen is quiet on the ride over, squeezed in between Will and Clara in the back and Henry’s turned around in the front seat, filling in all the available silence with his own amicable chatter. Will can’t follow it and neither can Clara but Helen manages a few well-timed remarks about circuits and transistors that seem to pacify Henry for the time being.

They all file out of the car more or less neatly and into a booth in the back of Ceilidh, the best Irish bar in all of Old City. Will isn’t entirely sure if it isn’t the _only_ Irish bar, but that doesn’t matter, because it’s the one where they know his face and his order without him having to say a word. Clara and Henry have regular orders too and it’s really only the matter of Helen to be settled. She dithers over her menu for a few long moments before asking, politely, for a pint of Harp and fish and chips. She folds her menu and hands it to their waitress who laughs heartily and tosses back her whole head as she does it, red curls a riot around her face.

“We’ve got an English girl in an Irish bar ordering Harp? At least it’s not Guinness, am I right?” Will orders Guinness whenever he comes in and Clara always asks for some mixed drink with whiskey in it. Henry’s a lightweight and sticks to Guinness himself, though he doesn’t down nearly as many as Will does on any particular night. “What’s your name, then? You’re a new one and this lot never brings new sorts down here. This is home to them, not some cheap place to get some skirt.”

Will’s not sure how much of the accent is a put on or not; as far as he knows, Molly Sullivan hasn’t ever been any further than Old City in as long as she’s been alive. Old Man Sullivan has a true lilt, though, and uses some Gaelic when he’s particularly riled. Molly still gets plenty of tips whether or not her accent’s waning and she’s always Will’s favorite whenever they come to Ceilidh. Helen doesn’t seem very amused and her lips are pursing in what Will’s decided is the harbinger of fussy Victorian prudery and he hopes he can head her off at the pass.

“She’s just teasing. Helen, this is Molly Sullivan, most excellent of hostesses. Molly, this is Helen Magnus.” Molly’s eyes light up a little in recognition: everyone in Old City knows who Magnus is and a relation of his is usually welcome even in classier places than a smoky Irish bar. She extends a hand and shakes Helen’s almost violently.

“Your Da, then? He’s been good to our family. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Magnus, and if there’s anything I can do, let me know?” With that, she’s gone, and other than a quick stop by to drop off their drinks and food, she stays conspicuously absent. After everyone’s had a drink or two, even Helen, the smiles and the laughs get a little easier and she slides a little closer in the booth next to Will. If the other two notice that, they don’t say anything, and when Will slides his arm around Helen’s shoulders, nobody feels the need to say anything about it.

Clara flags down Molly and gets her to bring a bottle of Jameson and four shot glasses. Will doesn’t really like where this is headed, exactly, but he’s willing to go along with it for a little while unless it just gets out of hand. Helen, relaxed and all smiles after her beer, nods eagerly at the chance to drink something she’d never be able to drink back in her own home and that pretty much settles the matter.

“We should...we should play Never Have I Ever,” Clara says and both Henry and Will audibly groan; it’s juvenile and brings back flashbacks of junior high where Will was the shortest kid in his class and Henry had acne. Clara, predictably, was perfect in junior high and had no such horror stories. Helen, well. Will’s not entirely convinced she didn’t spring forth fully grown and full of frippery straight from Magnus’s forehead, a Victorian reincarnation of Athena.

“You shall have to explain the rules,” Helen says, descending into a cascade of giggles when she slurs slightly. She turns her face against Will’s shoulder and he absent-mindedly pets her curls, too relaxed and uninhibited from alcohol to really check his reactions. Clara laughs and pours them all shots, apparently designating herself the leader for this evening, and puts the bottle in the middle of the table.

“We go in a circle. You say one thing you’ve never done and if someone else _has_ done it, they take a drink. Then we share war stories.” Helen nods, seemingly excited, and Will turns slightly in the booth to ask her why. Her eyes are bright blue and her smile is wider than he’s ever seen it before; once again, Will’s struck by how beautiful she is. He thought she was beautiful even as a portrait on the wall and she’s even more beautiful as a real woman who laughs and smiles and is sweet when she’s able to calm down and just be herself for a little while.

“Well, Dr. Zimmer...Zimm...Will,” Helen says, stumbling over his name as she’s had quite a lot to drink for someone who doesn’t drink very often or very much at the time. “I’ve never done anything, have I? I shall not have to drink at all. I think that means I win.” She’s smug about it but it’s so damn cute that Henry and Clara join him in laughing. They quiet a little and Clara lifts her shot glass, pressing her lips together as she thinks.

“Never have I ever...ridden a horse bareback.” Will shakes his head and Henry does too: neither of them has ever really gotten into riding in spite of the fact that Magnus has plenty of horses. Helen drinks her shot, downing it quickly and making a sour face before slamming her glass back down onto the table a bit more forcefully than necessary. She laughs a little and covers her mouth, embarrassed.

“Ah, bit of a lark with some friends when I was a girl. Luckily my father decided not to press charges against me for stealing his horse. Could have been quite awkward, yes?” It’s so tame by Will’s standards but Helen feels like it’s scandalous and that makes him smile. At least she’s getting into the spirit of things. It’s Henry’s turn, now, and none of them drink when he rattles off something about soloing Karazhan on a Holy Pally because none of them play WoW and Will’s stare is just as blank as Helen’s on that one. Will pours a fresh round of shots and holds his up, thoughtful.

“Never have I ever...gotten drunk in an Irish bar with an English girl,” Will says, teasing, and they all drink because it’s a lie. It’s Helen’s turn now and she seems nervous, rolling her glass around between her palms before pouring neatly measured shots for each of them. She spills hers a bit, amber liquid rolling down her slim fingers and she lifts the glass to her lips.

“Never have I ever kissed a man.” Henry looks shocked, for his part, and Clara just looks like the cat who ate the proverbial canary; Will’s pretty sure he sees a feather sticking in the corner of her mouth, she’s that smug. He doesn’t say anything. No sense in making a big deal about it if it ends up embarrassing Helen and he touches her wrist reassuringly. It’s his turn to be shocked when she turns in her seat and presses a kiss full on his mouth. It’s inexperienced and Will’s floored she’s even doing it, much less in front of the other two, but after a few seconds he slides his hands in her hair and deepens the kiss, slanting his mouth over hers and pushing it from a friendly kiss to something that...isn’t exactly friendly. When Helen pulls away, she looks a little startled and Will figures he looks about the same.

“Yeaaah. Okay, Foss, you think we should track Molly down and go get the check?” Henry nods eagerly and slides out of the booth to go handle that while Clara says she’s stepping out to go smoke. In truth, Will thinks Clara only says she’s going to smoke when she wants to get some fresh air because he’s not ever smelled cigarette smoke in her hair or on her clothes. Will wants to say something but he doesn’t know _what_ to say, exactly, and it’s pretty clear Helen doesn’t either. So they don’t talk about it other than a quick tangle of their fingers and a squeeze of their hands.

When they get back to the Sanctuary, Helen heads up to her own room and Will goes to his, to start, but ends up in Clara’s. Clara’s simple. Clara doesn’t expect anything out of him and doesn’t need him to be anyone but who he is, a regular guy, and Helen is complicated and needs things that Will’s not entirely sure he can even provide. Sex usually fixes most things when Will’s feeling out of it but he’s not even into it tonight, apologizing quietly to Clara when he can’t get it together. He does tug her close in against him, lips moving lightly against her hair to murmur his apologies.

“I’m not the one you want, Will. So why are you here with me and not up in Rapunzel’s tower?” Will wants to protest because it was just a kiss but, weirdly, nothing can be just a kiss between him and Helen Magnus. There’s a spark and a charge there that he’s never felt with Clara, at all, and while he’s scared to death of it, part of him is excited to see what the future holds too.

“Because I’m going to fuck it up. She’s...she’s the boss’s daughter, a complete princess, smart, gorgeous...we’re just fucked up kids, Clara, with no home other than this place. She is so far out of my league that my league and her league don’t even have diplomatic relations. She just kissed me because she was drunk.”

Clara shakes her head. “Nah. Why do you think she was so weird about walking in on us last month? It’s not because of her morals, Will, it’s because she wants to jump you. What you should do is go ask her out tomorrow when you’re sober and you’ve cleaned yourself up and see what answer you get. I’ll bet she’s flattered and says yes.”

Will half grins, kisses Clara one last time and heads back to his room, already making a plan of attack for just that.

***

He doesn’t get a chance. Sometime between late night confessions with Clara and waking up to a pounding headache, Will gets word from the Big Guy that Magnus passed during the night. An aneurysm, from what they can tell, and Helen’s utterly distraught. They’d woken her up first, alone, and she’d been sitting in the morgue with the body and not letting anyone inside for hours. Biggie hadn’t wanted to wake Will but he hadn’t known what else to do. Will waves off his concerns and goes inside, settling in a chair next to Helen. He chances reaching out and rubbing her back lightly just between her shoulder blades, comfort that gives and doesn’t require her to give anything back.

“I know it’s hard to lose someone, Helen, but it happens. Your father lived a long, good life and he got to see you again, which I know made him happy. You made him happier than I’ve seen him in a really long time.” Helen turns slightly in her chair to face him, eyes red-rimmed and puffy from crying. Her hair is a tangled, snarled mess and he reaches over to smooth it, fingers slipping and sliding through golden locks.

“No, it’s not...that, exactly. It’s just that it doesn’t make any sense. I want to do an autopsy. I want to see what killed him because I have no doubt in my mind this was intentional. My father had a...protege, I suppose. An assistant called Adam Worth? He was doing illegal experiments on Abnormals and Father dismissed him from his employ. He also did work with other things, time travel and the like, and perhaps...perhaps he’s to blame as to why I’m here and my father is dead. His abnormality simply would not allow him to have died from natural causes. His body repairs things too quickly.”

It’s not something Will’s ever thought about before but Gregory Magnus had never really been sick. He’d been functionally immortal since his original experiments in the late 19th century and without some sort of inherent defect he had before, there’s no way a normal illness or injury could fell him. It would have to override his healing factor entirely, which is apparently what this stroke or whatever it is has done. It’s a puzzle and maybe Helen’s right to question things. It can’t hurt for the moment, anyway.

But for now, he wants to take care of Helen. He tugs her hand to his lips, kissing it lightly, and her eyes sweep shut as she makes a little sound that’s half pleasure and half protest. Will tugs her into his arms and gives her a hug. It’s a simple thing and probably not something a man who wants to seduce a woman really goes for but in this, they’re friends, and he wants to offer her comfort a lot more than he wants to get into her pants.

“I’ll help you with the autopsy later,” Will offers, which is big considering he hates dead bodies more than almost anything. “But you need to eat and rest right now and I’m not taking no for an answer. Clara and Henry can handle what needs to be handled business-wise right now, I promise, and I’m all yours.”

He wants to say he’ll always be hers. He wants to say it and it’s at the tip of his tongue but he decides, ultimately, that it might be a little too much for her right this second. She’s just lost her father, possibly to foul play, and has a (if his own is anything to judge by) hell of a hangover. It would be a lot for anyone and considering Helen’s been through more in the last month or two than anyone should ever have to go through in a lifetime, he decides he’ll just play it easy and give her what she asks for when she asks for it instead of pressuring her.

“I don’t want to be alone,” Helen murmurs, keeping close, and Will’s more than all right with that. He leads her back up to her room, high in the west tower, and settles next to her on the bed. Helen has absently started pulling at her hair, fingers working at the knots, and Will tugs her hands away and up to his lips to kiss them, brushing feather-light kisses against her knuckles before dropping them into her lap.

“Where’s your brush, sweetheart? I’ll brush it for you.” Helen looks mildly shocked at the endearment and nods toward a little table that’s serving as a vanity, brush in plain view. Will crosses the room and retrieves it before coming back to the bed. He kicks off his shoes and slides onto the bed, back against the headboard, then tugs Helen back against him so he can start working on her hair. He thinks she has gorgeous hair, actually, and getting to touch and brush it is almost as much of a treat for him as it’s solace for her.

“I suppose we should talk about the kiss, then,” Helen says after twenty or thirty minutes have passed and her words are stark in the quiet room. Will’s just been dragging the brush through the golden length of her hair to make it shine, the tangles are long gone, and he puts it to the side in favor of simply pulling her back against his chest and wrapping his arms around her. He wants to talk about the kiss too but it seems wrong to do that when Helen is hollow and brought low by grief.

“If you want to, we can. I just don’t want you to feel like there’s any pressure, especially considering what happened last night.” It’s been a whirlwind, the past twenty-four hours or so, and Will had spun from being on top of the world to somewhere deep beneath the ocean. He knows it has to be worse for Helen, losing her father and the center of her life, and while sex and romance can be a comfort when grieving, Will doesn’t want to pressure her with that when she’s new to the entire concept, not just him.

“I wanted to kiss you before my father passed and I certainly still want to kiss you now,” Helen says evenly. “I want...I want much more than to kiss you. I’ve never met a man quite like you, Will Zimmerman, and while I’ve never been particularly interested in pursuing any sort of romance, I find it’s all I can think about where you’re concerned. Dreams and fantasies that were once half formed and nebulous at best are now painted in crisp colors and star your face and your hands.”

She turns, slightly, and her hair falls over her shoulder in an inviting way. Her skin is slightly pink from blushing and her breath is coming quickly. The physiological signs appear to be matching up with what she’s saying and that’s a good sign. He doesn’t want them to ever be on the wrong foot when it comes to a relationship, especially when a misstep might mean hurting her because Helen simply has no experience with it, emotionally or physically. Will cups her cheek, thumb brushing lightly at the corner of her mouth. God, she’s beautiful.

“I would like to take you for my paramour, Will.” Normally, Will would snort and laugh at such a weird phrasing but Helen is so nervous that he can almost see her pulse in the base of her throat, beating wild and erratic like a frightened hummingbird. She’s deadly serious and Will can tell she’s apparently been thinking about this for a little while because her words are carefully measured and parceled out in a way that speaks to rehearsal, not off the cuff remarks. He schools his reactions and listens, not wanting to hurt her. He never wants to hurt her, not when he feels so damn protective of her all the time.

“Is that like a boyfriend? Because if it is, the answer is yes. I’d really like to have you as my girlfriend, Helen.” It should feel a little high school, the weird choice of words, but Will finds that it feels as natural as anything else where Helen’s concerned. She turns all the way around, settling in his lap, and Will’s hands slide down her back, touching and soothing as best he can. Helen leans in and kisses him and she tastes complicated, like Darjeeling with a hint of cream and honey and any number of layers that it might take a lifetime to suss out. She’s inexperienced but she makes up for it in sheer enthusiasm, lips sliding against his and tongue tentatively darting into his mouth as if she might get burned if she lingers too long. 

Will slides one of his hands up to cup the back of her head and presses the other at her jeans-clad hip, pushing gently to roll her beneath him. Once she’s back on the bed, he stretches out and presses his full length against her, sliding one of her legs up and over his hip so he can cradle his hips against hers. It’s been a long time since Will’s spent any length of time _just_ kissing and so, in a way, it’s sort of like learning all over again while he’s teaching Helen. He nips at her lower lip with his teeth at the same time he rolls his hips up against her, letting her feel him hard against her. Helen gasps and Will pauses, not wanting to push anything she isn’t ready for.

“That was not an indication to stop,” Helen whispers and it’s both breathless and exasperated, which pleases him. He lifts up slightly and pulls off his shirt, figuring that’s the safest introduction to skin-to-skin contact that he can start with and Helen immediately starts touching him with light, curious fingertips, mapping out some sort of imperceptible pattern against his skin. She bites her lip slightly and frowns a bit, clear indications that she’s thinking, and then she pushes lightly at him. Will immediately pulls away, confused, only for realization to dawn on him when Helen works her hands between them to pull off her own shirt.

“You don’t have to, Helen,” he starts and he’s immediately admonished and silenced by sharp blue eyes and a little huff as she works off the shirt and tosses it to the floor. She lifts a bit to try and do the same with her bra and Will does stop her, hands taking hers and squeezing them lightly.

“Sweetheart, you’re hurting right now, I know, but this is going to be here tomorrow and the next day and the next. You don’t have to push this for me.” Helen turns her head slightly and Will thinks maybe she’s about to cry, the way her breath hitches and her eyes go bluer than they already are, sheened over with unshed tears. He draws one hand down the beautiful line of her neck and bare shoulder, caressing and (he hopes) not pressuring her.

“I want this, Will.” Her voice, though rough from almost-tears, is resolute. Will doesn’t have it in him to question her on it because if anything, Helen is strong and knows her own mind. Inexperienced, maybe, but a grown woman in possession of all her faculties and if she says she wants this, he’s not going to deny it to her if it will make her feel better. He’s voiced his concerns already and if she had the same, she had plenty of opportunity to agree or disagree with him.

Will slides his hands beneath her to unhook the bra and draw it away, eyes hungrily drinking in all her smooth, pale skin. She’s beautiful and he hates to stare but he’s always been so visual and Helen naked is a sensory overload. He doesn’t know if he wants to look longer or touch and learn her that way, so he compromises and looks into her eyes while he slides one hand down her neck and shoulder before cupping her breast and letting his thumb roll against her nipple. Helen’s breath hitches and he imagines she’s just as lost as he is in the sensation of it all.

The room is charged and it feels like lightning’s about to strike. Will slides down slightly to map the places his fingers have learned with his mouth and he fits his mouth over her nipple, tongue curving around it and coaxing her nipple into a stiff peak. Helen gasps and her hand finds his hair, nails digging slightly into his scalp, and when he scrapes his teeth against her and she pulls his hair, that lightning shoots down his spine and sends arousal pooling in a low, primal place. He’s _never_ felt like this before with anyone. Not Clara. Not Meg. Not anyone but Helen.

He lingers over kisses like he has all the time in the world and presses his lips low against her belly as he works her jeans down off her hips. That gets another smile and a little bit of a chuckle and Helen makes a strange, prudish noise and tugs at his hair. “What on earth is so funny, Will?”

Will finishes tugging her jeans off and slides his hands beneath her to cup her ass before kissing her again, just above the band of a pair of ridiculously-lacy baby blue panties. Seriously. Closest thing to Victorian lingerie she could find in Old City, he guesses, and it’s just so ridiculously _her_ that Will can’t help but grin like a fool about it.

“God, you’re hot in jeans. Criminal. Best part is, up until now, I bet you didn’t even know, did you?”

“I find denim trousers to be functional for messy work,” Helen says, voice a little clipped, and Will soothes it with a kiss against one slim thigh. “He-len,” he sing-songs, amused. “I like how you look in them. Makes your legs look longer, your hips and ass look fuller. I know psychiatry isn’t really a thing when you’re from but men like women with round, full...”

He doesn’t get to finish, because Helen’s giggling and swatting at him to stop and he decides to put his mouth to a better use. While she’s new to this, and shy because it is new, Helen isn’t really reserved about her pleasure and when he fits his mouth over her to lick, suck and tease through the frilly panties, she’s enthusiastic about pressing up against him. He slides one finger along the edge of them, barely teasing beneath.

“Can I?” Helen manages a breathless, “Yes, you may,” and Will skims them off before taking a moment to just _look_. It’s been a long time, if ever, that he’s looked at a woman the way he’s looking at Helen now and while she’s colored with a bit of a flush, she slides her thighs a little further apart and indulges him. He touches her lightly with a fingertip, confident if slow, and Helen circles his wrist with her hand.

“Show me, Will? Teach me this so I’ll know.” It’s weird, maybe, to guide her hand down to touch herself when, really, at this age she should have had at least some experience but Helen’s an anachronism, not fitting into her time or his, and is inherently special because of it. She gets slicker as they touch, breath coming fast, and Helen whimpers when he pushes her hand away, a frown worrying her forehead.

“Will, I didn’t want to stop!” She sounds utterly bereft and Will kisses her thigh again, close enough that his lips are wet with _her_ and murmurs his apologies against silk-soft skin. She seems slightly soothed by that even if he can still feel how her thighs have tensed and he slides his hands beneath her, cupping her hips and pushing her open. He kisses her clitoris and murmurs against her.

“Not stopping. You just can’t help me with this, sweetheart.” Helen calms, soothed by that, only to whimper and twist beneath his mouth. For all she’s shy about these things, she’s a hedonist when it comes to seeking her pleasures and when he gets a moment to think about something other than her gasping and trembling under him, he slides his fingers against her, dipping in slightly instead of brushing against her. He hasn’t had sex with a virgin since he was one and he’s going slow for himself as much as he is for her. 

He sucks her clitoris while he slides his fingers in and crooks them, working her open. She’s tight, so tight, and Will wants to go slow so he doesn’t hurt her. She whimpers as she gets closer and closer and Will doesn’t let up on the sensation and doesn’t let her escape. When she comes, her thighs tighten and her hips and back arch up off the bed, pushing her toward his mouth and toward what she needs.

He spends a few moments just petting and touching her after she comes down, reveling in the way her fingers drift aimlessly through his hair. It feels good, affectionate and adorable, and he turns his face into her touch for a second before shifting to stand up. Helen props herself on her elbows and watches as he shucks his jeans and boxers and slides on a condom. For her, more than him, because part of caring about her (loving her?) is protecting her. Will waggles his brows at her and she looks slightly less nervous once she starts giggling. He covers her on the bed again to kiss her, hands thrusting into her hair.

“I care about you so much, Helen,” Will murmurs, kissing her sweetly, and when he tips his hips against hers to press inside, he keeps it slow even though she feels so, _so_ good. Her own movements are jerky and unpracticed but Will keeps it slow and is patient, rolling his hips against her and trying his best to make it feel good. She whimpers a little and when he comes, he buries his face against the soft skin of her neck and shoulder, murmuring sweet, meaningless things about how beautiful she is and how he’s so happy to have her.

She’s quiet and after a few moments, Will realizes his shoulder’s wet and hers are shaking. Shit. Shit shit _shit_.

“Helen, what did I do? Did I hurt you?” He pulls back enough to see her face and she shakes her head quickly, curls sticking to her wet cheeks. Will doesn’t know what to do or say because he doesn’t really have a lot to pull from on a _personal_ level when a woman’s crying in his bed after sex so he just holds her close and hopes that makes it a little better, somehow. It has to be better.

“It’s not...what we did,” Helen says finally and while her voice is still shaking, she seems to have stopped crying. “It’s...my father is the most important person in my life. I’ve never been without him. He and I have always been there for one another and I’m realizing I’ll never be able to take tea with him again or see him smile or watch him light up about some experiment or another. He’s gone, Will. My father’s gone.”

Will brushes kisses against her cheeks and forehead, gentle and loving, and tugs her in his arms so she cry out the rest of it in the safest harbor he can provide.

***

To fill the void that Gregory’s left behind, Will’s working double and triple overtime. There’s whole days where he doesn’t see his bed, at all, and he knows that Clara and Helen are working just as hard. Clara’s been taking on Will’s old field duties and she’s currently in South America running down a lead on an Abnormal with extraordinary healing properties. Helen has, for all intents and purposes, been learning Will’s old job as second and taking to it as quickly as she can manage.

It’s not quick enough sometimes and when she botches the Norwegian audit paperwork, Will lashes out in anger and frustration and sends her running off to God knows where; he’ll find her once it’s sorted out and then he can apologize. Sorting it out takes longer than anyone could imagine and when he finally gets a chance to see where Helen’s gone off to, he finds her in the lab staring down a little white robot that looks too much like a spider for Will’s comfort.

“Um, did you decide to take over Henry’s job instead of mine? You and tech aren’t exactly a marriage.” Helen looks up, frowns, and turns the device over, pointing out several sharp spines. “It’s some sort of remote probing device. Adam was fond of these when I was younger and I’m surprised to see one here. Perhaps he’s still lurking about to ensure he got whatever it was he needed from my father.”

Will hasn’t really wanted to address the fact that Helen’s been grasping at straws since Gregory died because if he does, it will be cruel and force her to face the grief she’s so assiduously trying to avoid. Still, there’s a line between fantasy and reality and Helen is dangerously close to crossing it with this Adam business, especially since the autopsy was inconclusive. He sighs and squeezes her shoulder lightly before giving her a quick massage just as an excuse to touch her. He’s bone tired these days and so is she but Will never passes up an opportunity to be with her.

“It’s late, Helen, and I’m sorry for snapping earlier. Let me make it up to you?” Will gives her his best puppy face and Helen _tries_ to frown only to dissolve into giggles and give him a grin instead. Helen slides her hand in his and follows Will back up to his room, falling back into bed with more giggles while Will gets intimately reacquainted with her long, smooth legs. God, he loves her legs and the fact that Helen’s been wearing shorter (for her, anyway, they’re still modest) skirts means he gets to see them a hell of a lot more often.

As he works his mouth up the inside of one sleek calf and thigh, Helen’s sounds transition from giggles to something a lot more intimate.

***

Will normally sleeps like a stone after sex but he’s jostled awake by a panicked Helen and some kind of _weird_ creatures appearing and disappearing into thin air in his bedroom. There’s a man with them, just a shadowy apparition, and Helen hysterically indicates that it’s Adam Worth, her father’s old protege. Will wants to chalk it up to a nightmare except that he saw it too and he’s not sure what kind of medical condition or Abnormal can cause shared hallucinations; Clara’s better at IDing monsters than Will is ever going to be.

When they get dressed and head down to the library to research, they end up not having to work very hard as Worth is there already, tearing through Gregory’s private books. Helen moves to attack him, screaming that he’s already taken enough, and Will holds her back. If they’re going to get anywhere with Worth, it’s not by going on the offensive. Will’s a big fan of wait and see and analyzing before acting. Helen is a little more rash and hotheaded, especially when it comes to her father.

“Keystones. I know they’re here. That’s why I sent our dearest Helen forward, after all, so she could get them for me. I hadn’t counted on the fact that she’d disappear from our era entirely and leave Gregory so bereft he wouldn’t do a damn thing for the next century. I probed his mind, see, and there was nothing there. Poor fellow just couldn’t make it through questioning with my little friend. Unintentional casualty.”

Helen yanks herself away from Will and moves toward Worth, aiming to hit him or claw out his eyes or some combination of both. He backhands her, sending her reeling to the floor, and while Will wants to string him up for that, he settles for kneeling next to Helen and tending to her wounds.

“What the hell are these keystones and what makes you think we’ll get them for you?” Worth laughs and circles them both, shaking his head at the two of them. Will’s beginning to see why Gregory hadn’t been fond of the guy and instinctively tugs Helen closer into his arms, wanting to shield her even though he’s not much of a fighter and Helen’s more than capable of handling herself these days.

“Check the back of your neck, Zimmerman. My little ones infected you with nanites which will, eventually, break down and release toxins that will poison you unless _I’m_ the one who hits the kill-switch. No keystones and you’ll die, plain as that.” Helen looks stricken as she touches the back of his neck lightly with two fingertips, confirming Worth’s words, and her own voice is laced with ice.

“You might want to give me some sort of indication as to where to start looking, Adam, or I shall be very cross and have to kill you.” Adam unrolls a bit of paper on a nearby table and shows it to Helen, fingers running lightly beneath text written in a spidery script.

> My dearest Helen,

> I never intended to leave you this way. You have only just come back to me and losing you was simply never an option. I never considered the fact you might lose me instead. He’ll want the keystones, darling girl, but I know you’re clever enough to have your cake and eat it too. You always have been.

> The first keystone is your past, slumbering deep beneath Heather and stone. The second lay in your future, within the Timberman’s tower. You’ll find them, pet, I’m sure of it.

> Always,

> Father.

“Well? Tell me where they are.” Helen narrows her eyes at Adam and shakes her head, exasperated. Will’s pretty used to Gregory being cryptic but this is a new height and even he doesn’t know where to start looking. Timberman’s tower sounds like something made of wood and the Old City Sanctuary has always been made of stone. Will made a habit of learning everything he could about the history of the network and at no point has this house had any sort of wooden tower. If Timberman’s tower is in Old City, it’s not something obvious.

“I don’t know, Adam. If you’ll go away and leave me alone, I can puzzle over this and come up with a response. Will you give me ten days? Ten days should suffice, provided Will won’t fall ill in the interim?”

Will’s not sure that him staying healthy is an option. He’s already feeling shaky like the flu’s coming on and he’s not sure if it’s psychological because Worth told him he’d get sick or if he’s actually starting to feel the effects of decaying nanites. He slides his hand in Helen’s just as Adam dematerializes, using the same technology he’d used before when he originally captured Helen. This is all so screwed up and he just hopes they have time before he succumbs to whatever he’s been infected with.

When Will wakes again, it’s late in the day and he’s shivering even though he’s wearing clothes and covered in blankets. Helen is seated at his bedside, mouth set into a frown and he can tell she’s worried. Helen is a doctor before she’s a lover, though, and the questions she asks about him aren’t personal and are skewed toward his medical condition. While he appreciates that, he wants _his_ Helen for a moment. He wants a chance to spend time with her even if they should be working on the puzzle instead.

“What about the keystones? What do you think?” Helen pauses in her rapid-fire questions about his temperature and his pain levels and brightens slightly. Apparently she’s figured one of them out, or has a good lead on it, and has a flight booked in the morning to run down the lead and retrieve the first keystone. She gives him a gentle smile that makes everything seem all right even if his whole world’s been turned upside down in the last twenty-four hours.

“The first is slumbering beneath heather and stone,” Helen says, repeating what Gregory had written in his letter. “Which originally made me think of Scotland, some mountain perhaps? But then I realized that Heather is capitalized. My mother was Patricia Bancroft-Heathering, having been married and widowed before my father married her. I suspect the stone is her tomb so we’ll have to go to London. Or, well, I’m going to London on an aeroplane and I’m horribly nervous about it. I wish you were going with me, Will.”

It’s clever, he has to hand it to her and Gregory both. He goes to say just that when he’s racked by a cough deeper and stronger than anything he’s ever felt before. It’s insane, the way these nanite things work so fucking fast and he knows Gregory couldn’t have stood a chance even with his own enhanced physiology. There’s just no beating this without Worth’s interference whether Will wants to admit to it or not. Helen’s hands are gentle as they rub his back, soft and soothing and a feeling he just wants to wrap himself up in forever.

“I wish I was going with you too. Maybe I can figure out the other half, the Timber thing or whatever. It makes no sense but I feel like that keystone has to be in Old City. Your father wrote that letter after you showed back up and it says it’s your future. Your future has to be here, right?” Helen smiles a bit and smooths an errant curl back off his forehead. It’s useless, because it’ll fall right back down into his face without product but he guesses she just wants something to do with her hands.

“I want my future here. I want to continue my father’s legacy and I know I’m not the best at all the tasks that need to be managed to run this Network but I am trying, Will, I assure you of that. On a more personal level, I would also like our relationship to feature prominently in our future endeavors. You must get well, Will. I could not bear to lose you too.” Helen tugs his hands up to her lips and brushes kisses against his knuckles.

“I must pack for England. Please call me if you need anything? Anything at all, I want to provide it sooner rather than later. You need not suffer for fear of interrupting me.”

***

Helen isn’t the type of woman to be afraid. She’s done a great many things in her life that a woman should be barred from and yet she’s been flawless at all of them. Certainly, she could do well to have a bit more poise and grace but it does not seem to be as necessary in Old City as it had been in London. Besides, those things she thought she might never achieve as a young unmarried woman in London all seem within reach now: her studies, her work, romance.

Will has been a Godsend. Helen cannot imagine being without him and now he lay ill because of her own poor decisions, in a way. She’s not entirely certain why Adam wants the Keystones so much but she cannot imagine it is a good thing; he’s always been a bit mad and it only seems to have grown worse with time. Clearly he wants to use her father’s work for ill gain and Helen won’t stand for it. She simply won’t.

The first task in her way is getting on an airplane, though, and the entire concept of getting in a bit of metal and sailing through the air across the ocean is unfathomable. She doesn’t suppose it’s terribly different from a balloon or a dirigible but still. It’s foreign and frightens her. Henry assures her that planes are perfectly safe and highly advanced and she’s lucky Magnus owns a private jet and she doesn’t have to fly commercial.

Even tucked into a fine leather seat and given wine to soothe her nerves doesn’t eliminate them entirely and Helen still white-knuckles the seat during takeoff and it’s only the knowledge that she is working to save Will and on a deadline that keeps her from making the pilot land and let her go catch a ship across the ocean instead. Will needs her to solve this sooner rather than later and she truly hopes that beneath Heather and stone means her mother’s tomb.

It’s fitting enough, with her father. He’d always been a sentimental sort and Helen knows that as she grew older, she resembled Patricia Heathering Magnus much more than she’d ever resembled her father. Sometimes, when he looked at her, Gregory’s eyes would well up with pain and Helen had to leave the room because she couldn’t bear to make him endure it. How awful, to know that your own daughter has the face of a woman you loved and buried and could do nothing to bring back? It must have been torture. Helen hopes that he’s with her now.

The panic of initial takeoff had given her a burst of adrenaline and once it ebbs, Helen falls into a dreamless sleep. The plane’s in the midst of landing before she wakes again and she supposes if she has to fly halfway around the world, it’s best she goes to bed in one country and wakes up in the next. Infinitely preferable to staying awake and digging her nails into the armrests the entire time, that was for certain.

Once the plane lands, Helen says her goodbyes to the captain and makes arrangements to be flown back the next night. She cannot afford to waste any more time than that, even if she comes back empty handed, and she does not know what she’ll be able to do to make Will comfortable if she doesn’t succeed. It seems a horrible way to die, each system failing one by one and while Helen can offer palliative care, there’s no _curing_ it without Adam. Helen hates depending upon the whims of a madman but there’s simply no other course of action at the moment.

London has changed immensely since Helen’s era and it takes a while to find her bearings but it does seem the city is still based upon the old roads and city centers. What was once farmland is now full up with houses and stores but deep in the heart of London, things are the same. Luckily, her mother is still buried in Highgate and the fashionable nature of the cemetery means her body hasn’t been moved since the 19th century.

She has a mausoleum to herself, both a gift of her father’s wealth and his influence among city planners and Helen hopes that means nobody’s gone and moved the keystone thinking it’s a pretty bauble to be sold off. It’d be just her luck. Seeing the crypt brings back a rush of memories and Helen feels like a little girl of five once more, tears streaming down her face because she didn’t understand why her mother wouldn’t just come _home_. Her Father, bless him, had tried to explain it but Helen hadn’t understood when she was so small. She felt along the edges of the tomb, trying to find where a hiding place might be. It can be anywhere inside the little mausoleum but Helen’s guess is that it’s close to her mother’s body. _Heather_ and stone. It has to be here.

She runs her hands all along the base of the tomb and is nearly about to give up when her fingers catch in a little groove that doesn’t seem to fit with the smooth marble casing. Helen whispers a thanks to her Father before pushing in lightly and releasing the catch on a little drawer. When it springs open, it reveals a bit of dusty velvet and Helen lifts it with trembling hands. It has to be this. There’s just no other option and Helen refuses to believe this won’t end well for she and Will.

The keystone itself is a bit of dulled brass, some sort of scrollwork that very clearly appears to fit into another half, two pieces of a larger whole. Helen grins, kisses her hand and lays it gently against the marble.

“Thank you, Mother, for everything. I still love you. I always will.”

***

Helen’s been gone less than 24 hours and Will already wishes she was back. Adam had warned that it would get far, far worse before the end but Will hadn’t really taken that under advisement. Maybe it was bravado, maybe incredulity but the actuality is that he’s never been in so much pain in his entire life. His fever’s spiked, every joint aches and he doesn’t so much breathe as suck down shallow lungfuls of air between coughing spasms that spit up more blood than Will thinks he’s ever actually had within his body. His room looks like a crime scene.

In between attempting to breathe, he and Henry have been working on the other half of the riddle. It’s not their strong suit. Gregory had been fond of shit like that and Helen got her half of the riddle pretty damned quickly but Will’s still at a loss. He’s always been good at finding things that don’t fit and he thinks if he weren’t so sick, he’d be a hell of a lot better at playing Sherlock Holmes. Still, he and Henry have to _try_ because Will just doesn’t give up that easily.

He drags himself out of bed and manages (albeit without much success) to look halfway human when he slinks into Henry’s lab. Henry wisely doesn’t say anything about Will’s condition and if it has to be the elephant in the room, Will can put a lampshade on it and blithely ignore it for the time being if Henry can. They’ve got a hell of a lot bigger fish to fry at the moment.

“You think maybe...we’ve been going with wood,” Henry says, spinning around in his chair. Will’s pretty sure he’d have decked him about midway through the second spin if his own head wasn’t spinning. Instead, he tries valiantly to focus on the problem at hand. If they don’t solve this before the ten days are up, it’s game over for he and Helen, for the Network and for Will specifically. He isn’t ready to die. Maybe some people get to the point where their lives are neatly organized and they’re prepared to move on to the next world but Will’s not there yet. Not when he’s got this much unfinished business.

“Well, yes. Timber. Is there a point, Henry?” If Henry’s got something that Will hasn’t thought about, now’s the time to bring it to the table.

“Well, maybe...maybe it’s a riddle in a riddle. Helen’s riddle had to do with a name, with Heather. Heather was capitalized and she figured out it meant Heathering, for her mother? What if Timber is a name or part of a name too? If it’s someone here in the house, we can figure out which part of the Sanctuary to start looking. So. Who all do we have here that have names anyway. Biggie’s out, his name isn’t in a language intelligible by humans. So’s Sally.”

Will tugs a pad of paper and pen toward himself, scribbling down all the names he can think of that are people within the network.

> 1\. Clara Griffin  
> 2\. Henry Foss  
> 3\. Will Zimmerman  
> 4\. Helen Magnus  
> 5\. Declan MacRae

“Hmm. Etymologies, then? Griffin is Welsh. Zimmerman is German. Magnus is probably German or Norse, I’d think, MacRae is obviously Scottish. Foss...English, right?” Will scratches out Magnus and when Henry lifts a brow, Will shrugs.

“Figures the old man wouldn’t hide it somewhere so obvious. Besides, Magnus means ‘great.’ Didn’t you ever take any Latin?” Henry shakes his head and looks at the other names before turning in his chair again, fingers flying over his keyboard. Will tries to lean in and get a look but he gets dizzy and pulls back, closing his eyes and trying to run over the names in his head. Helen’s future. The keystone lay in Helen’s _future._

“Henry, stop. It’s me. My name is German and it means woodcutter. Timber-man, Zimmerman. _I’m_ Helen’s future. Gregory was trying to say that it was me and the keystone’s somewhere in relation to me. We’ve got to search my room and my office, turn it upside down and see if we can find it before Helen gets back.”

***

Turning his office upside down turns out to be a little less methodical than Will wants and if he survives this, he’s going to kill Henry for undoing about six months’ worth of organized and filed expense reports. But if he doesn’t, he’s still haunting him from beyond the grave. It’s not in his office. Will has checked every nook and cranny and even the secret door that Gregory always thought he’d kept secret and Will always knew about. On a lark, he checks his old office, since maybe when Gregory wrote the clue he was thinking of Will in his usual place and not taking over the bigger, Head of House office.

It turns out not to be there, either, but instead in a hidden little cache inside the post of Will’s bed. Will isn’t sure how or when Gregory put the damned thing there but he’s grateful they’ve found it just in time because the search took everything out of him and Henry looks stricken when he starts pouring Will into bed. Will is, more or less, in and out without much concept of what’s going on and he gathers that’s a good thing; the snippets he hears aren’t really encouraging. BP is falling, white count failing, major organ systems failing: he needs Worth’s cure and _fast_.

He does hear Helen when she comes back and rouses for her. Her hands are cool and soft against fevered skin and her voice is something he wants to wrap himself up in and drift away on. She’s found her keystone too, they have both of them, and she’s making promises that Will really hopes she’ll be able to keep. When he does manage to open his eyes, hers are big and blue and red-rimmed from tears; as beautiful as it is to see her cry, Will hates that it’s for him. Because of him. First she loses her father and now this? At least there’s a chance with him and it’s not senseless and sudden. There’s hoops to jump through and a protocol to follow but then that pain around her eyes will ease and he’ll start feeling better.

“Don’t cry,” Will manages to croak past dry lips and that startles Helen; she seems to not have been expecting him to speak and she covers her mouth to keep from speaking herself. He can still hear her gasp of shock and he weakly grabs for her hand, tangling her fingers in his and squeezing as tight as he can manage. She squeezes back and, in a move that shocks him somewhat, slides into bed next to him. Just the warm weight of her laying next to him is a comfort and while he wishes he could do a lot more other than just lay there, laying there is good. She slides his arm around her waist and fits herself back against him as closely as she can manage and when Will drifts off to sleep this time, it’s with a smile on his face.

 _I love you,_ he thinks, but he can’t muster up the strength to say it aloud. He hopes she can tell that he presses a little closer and lets his lips brush against her hair; it’s not the perfect way to give her the words but it’s the best he can manage right this moment. He prays that she can read between the lines. He’s not sure how long they lay there, Will drifting in and out of sleep and Helen occasionally wracked by her own tears but it’s interrupted by a flash of bright light and Adam tsking as he walks around the bed.

“Keystones, Helen, it’s time.”

Helen sits straight up and pushes her hair from her eyes and Will watches through his own even though they’re blurred with tears and sleep. She looks ready to fight, which is good; Will isn’t sure he can pull his weight this time around and he’ll need all the help he can get. When Helen speaks, her voice is crisp and cool and full of a command she simply couldn’t have mustered two months prior. Will is, strangely enough, proud of her and he thinks that Gregory would be too.

“I’ll have you cure Will before I turn over any keystones. Besides, I’ve no idea what you even want them for. Perhaps Will is acceptable collateral damage for whatever dastardly thing you have planned. I won’t sacrifice the needs of the many for one man, no matter how much I may care for him.” Her voice falters just slightly and Will hopes she can keep to that conviction. He’s not worth the death of millions of Abnormals, no matter if Helen feels as strongly for him as he does for her, and as much as it pains him to admit it, he’d tell her to let him die if she could save the network as a whole.

“I’ll see the keystones before I cure him. I want to ensure you’re not giving me fakes. As to what I want, well. There are worlds beyond this one, Helen, even if your addled Victorian brain can’t comprehend them. I want Praxis for my own and without Gregory to protect the secret, there will be no stopping me from returning and overthrowing the Seneschal.” It’s all nonsense to Will. He’s never heard of a place called Praxis or a Seneschal and somehow, even through the haze of madness that clings to Adam’s every word there’s a ring of truth. It’s something they _need_ to protect even if they don’t fully comprehend it yet.

“Very well,” Helen says, tugging Will to unsteady feet. He has to lean on her more than he ever thought possible and he hates it. Maybe he’s just been thinking along the lines of traditional gender roles since Helen showed up and he fell for her but there’s something wrong about feeling weak and impotent in front of the woman he loves. Helen is strong in her own right, able to quickly adapt to missing hundreds of years of progress and relatively cool in a crisis and Will not only accepts that, he embraces it. He likes that Helen’s come into her own and isn’t the frightened woman he met two months prior but he wants to be strong alongside her, a partner and not a liability.

Helen helps him along to the office that had once been Gregory’s, then Will’s and now temporarily hers as Clara’s still out in the field. She’d been due back soon but Will hasn’t really been keeping up with what’s going on for the past few days and maybe she’s already come and gone again; Clara has been known to be invisible in more than one facet of her life. Helen’s been keeping the keystones in a locked drawer in Gregory’s desk and she removes them, laying them out in front of Adam on a length of soft, black velvet. Adam tilts his head and hums a little, seemingly pleased with what he’s been presented with and pulls out a little remote. Nanite control.

“Hand them to me, Helen-darling, and I’ll press the button and cure him.” Helen shakes her head. Gregory didn’t raise a fool, neither his biological children nor the ones he’d adopted through the network and she clutches tightly to the keystones and jerks her head toward Adam’s hand. It’s a stalemate and one that Will hopes that Helen is prepared to win even if it means she loses him. She and this network are so, so much more important than him. Adam sighs, seemingly annoyed, and presses the button. 

There’s a flash of bright light that sears Will’s eyes and he crumples to the ground, pain shooting through every nerve ending all at once. Then, it’s as if the synapses are simply exhausted because he feels examinate and numb laying against the hardwood floor of the office, sensory data trickling in slowly like reports from a beleaguered front. Toes seem to be fine, as do fingers. Heart and lungs work. Breathing. Touch. He opens his eyes last and other than residual flashes across his vision from the white-hot light of before, it seems normal. He seems normal.

Adam lunges for the keystones and while Will can see him spring on his heels to make that grab, he’s weak as a newborn colt and can’t find his legs. He scrambles, as does Helen, and both of them are puzzled when there’s a glint of silver at Adam’s neck and the bright arc of arterial spray that covers Helen’s hands and chest. Adam’s lifeless body slumps to the floor and then something winks into existence. Slender, brunette, hands covered in blood: _Clara_.

“Miss me? You could look a little happier about it, you know.”

***

It’s a few days later, after full debriefs by MacRae, that Clara tells the true story about how she’d been tailing Helen back from England, stowed away on her plane and remained invisible the entire time. She’d known (thief’s intuition) that Adam would cheat them out of the keystones and the cure somehow and she’d wanted to ensure that didn’t happen, even if it meant her own life. She’d also spent some time tailing Adam, putting together invaluable intelligence about his whereabouts and traveling over the past hundred years or so and presented them with some sort of 3-D rendered map.

“Praxis, I think. Wouldn’t hurt to make an attempt to go down there, probably, if you wanted. But I want some serious hazard pay for what I did.”

Will promises it, sight unseen, and settles into his office (Gregory’s office, whichever) for a long, long stretch of paperwork. Helen comes in after a few hours with a tea tray and he shares with her; his morale about paperwork improves by leaps and bounds if she sits on his lap and translates the French for him so she does just that, rewarding tricky conjugations with kisses and scolding his terrible accent.

“Really, it’s mad that I love you. It’s the only way I can put up with such atrocious spelling. That should be an e, not an i, as they do not ever sound the same in French.” She pronounces the difference but her tongue ends up tangled in his halfway through. She loves him. It’s fitting that it comes out so easily when his own tongue had been clumsy against the words when he lay dying and once he decides that he does need oxygen to live, he pulls back and cups her cheeks so he can look into her eyes.

“You love me? When did that happen?”

Helen laughs and turns her head, cheating her face to try and hide her blush. “Since the night in the bar, most likely, but certainly after my father died. I do not need you to return the sentiment just now, I know it must feel quick.”

Will shakes his head and gives her the words plainly, I love you, before fixing his mouth against the crook of her neck and shoulder and letting the words tumble past his lips over and over, sealing it into his kiss as he learns her all over again.


End file.
